The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Neil McEvoy, amendment 2 in the name of Rebecca Evans, amendment 3 in the name of Siân Gwenllian, amendment 5 in the name of Darren Millar, and amendments 5 and 6 in the name of Neil Hamilton. If amendment 1 is agreed amendments 2, 3 and 4 will be deselected. If amendment 2 is agreed amendments 3 and 4 will be deselected. If amendment 3 is agreed amendment 4 will be deselected.

That brings us to the next item, which is the Brexit Party debate, and I call on Mark Reckless to move the motion—Mark Reckless.

Motion NDM7276 Caroline Jones

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Regrets the failure of Welsh devolution to date.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. I move, formally. Ron Davies described devolution as a process not an event. 'An evolving process' is another way of saying 'No stable settlement'. Our constitutional arrangements are constantly contested and that, we believe, is a failure. Welsh Government may assert in its amendment that our current devolved institutions are the settled will of the Welsh people, but that is all it is: an assertion. Why, if these institutions have such settled support, is Welsh Government always agitating to change that supposed settlement?

Of course, through history, people and institutions agitate for money and power. The Welsh Government in this Assembly demand more money and more power, and claim it will be spent or exercised better than by UK Government. But what is the record? For education, Wales is still bottom of the UK table and below the OECD average for maths, reading and science on the PISA results. For health, we have record numbers waiting more than 12 hours in A&E—two and a half times as many as in England—and we have a health board mired in special measures for a whole Assembly term. Meanwhile, gross weekly pay in Wales is £50 less than the UK average, a gap that has massively grown during devolution. And where Welsh Government has levers to improve our economic performance, it fails to use them effectively. Still, we see costs spiralling on the Heads of the Valleys road, far from completion, while £114 million was spent on a promised M4 relief road, now cancelled, cutting south Wales off from key sources of economic growth. You can look forward to hearing from my colleague Mandy Jones about north Wales.

So, is it really the settled will of the people of Wales that UK Government should forever be stripped of power, substance and authority to the benefit of the Welsh Government and Assembly? I don't believe that it is. Wales voted by 4:1 against devolution in 1979, and by a fraction of a percent for a limited model—devolving the Executive and administrative powers of the Wales Office—in 1997. And we should face the fact that the trajectory of devolution in Wales has been in the slipstream of Scotland. There are, of course, many polls we can cite, but on any measure, the demand for self-government, autonomy or independence in Wales is less than in Scotland. But the Welsh Government likes having more power, so says we must have the same as Scotland. The self-interest of devolved institutions and politicians acts to increase separation and accentuate difference between Wales and England. Is that wanted, and is the structure of devolution sustainable?

The greater powers that the Scottish Government and Parliament have—at least those granted through the infamous pledge—reflect the fear of UK politicians that Scotland would otherwise vote for independence. They have no similar fare with respect to Wales. The Minister for Economy, Transport and—now, the order paper tells us—North Wales writes threatening letters to Westminster, demanding full devolution of rail, or else. He tells Westminster MPs it must be done to save the union, given a growing movement for Welsh independence. I'm afraid, on this matter, he is not taken seriously. 

The First Minister, at least, takes seriously Wales's fiscal deficit. According to the Wales Governance Centre, total Government spending in Wales in 2019 was £13.7 billion more than the taxes and other Government income raised in Wales. That fiscal deficit is equivalent to 19.4 per cent of Welsh GDP, compared to about 7 per cent in Scotland. It is the First Minister's knock-down argument against independence; Plaid Cymru's demand that England take away £1 in every £5 spent in Wales. Yet, the Welsh Government is happy to hide behind that demand, as it agitates for more and more devolution. The latest demand, articulated in a long and worthy report commissioned by the ex-First Minister, is for justice and policing to be devolved. Because the courts and police interface with public services that are devolved, we are told that they too must be devolved, although that logic can of course work in two ways. Similarly, we are told that it is illogical for a legislature not to have its own jurisdiction, and therefore Wales must have its own legal jurisdiction, separate from England and English law. Again, that logic can work two ways.

What will we do if voters in England decide they have had enough of the cost devolution entails for them as our common governance erodes? Many, including in this Chamber, recognise how hard devolution in the UK is to reconcile with the logic of political systems we see elsewhere in the world. On Saturday, in Newcastle, I heard the ex-First Minister set out his vision of a federal UK. I've heard David Melding develop his ideas in this field on many an occasion. Indeed, we heard yesterday that he now has his colleague Darren Millar on side, although whether that is through force of logic or repetition, I do not know. I'm not persuaded by their case. That is because, while I emphasise commonality between Wales and England, the differences are greater than those between English regions. And, as we saw in a referendum in the north east of England, there is little appetite there for separate Assemblies. The alternative to that is, within a federal system, an English Parliament. As well as likely bringing another layer of politicians, for which there is no demand, the power, size and budget of such an institution, and presumably its associated Government, would imply a dominance that would itself tend to undermine continuing UK institutions. 

Many Members who voted remain, and feel that the UK is diminished through leaving the EU, fear this will lead to Irish unification and Scottish independence. [Interruption.] I give way to the Member for Monmouth. 

Thanks for giving way, Mark. I remember when Dafydd Elis-Thomas once told me, or told this Chamber some years back—or I think it was on the radio, actually, Dafydd—that Snowdon was the highest peak in Wales and, because there was nothing higher in England, it was the highest in England as well. I remember that well. You are quite right to say that England and Wales are different.

Is it not worth looking into this federal system, though? Because that does seem to me, and to my colleagues on the front bench here, to be a way for us to move forward to secure the UK; but at the same time to give Wales that sort of independent voice within the structure that it needs.

Yes, Snowdon is the tallest mountain in England and Wales, absolutely—[Interruption.] The highest mountain in Wales as well. That is also true. I don't think it's the highest mountain in England, whatever Dafydd Elis-Thomas said previously. 

I do take the arguments seriously. There are many countries in the world that have federal systems, and one potential attraction of a federal system is that many, if not most of them, are stable. So, rather than having this process of ever more devolution and this slippery slope, we potentially replace it with a stable system. 

Would you give way?

I will give way to David, who will educate me further on this point. 

The advantage of federalism is that it does give you a rulebook, but it's constant bargaining between the state and sub-state level. You see this in the United States, where the state level—i.e. the sub-state in America—was thought to be declining, and books were written on the end of federalism. Now, we see it's quite the reverse, with California leading environmental policy for the whole nation.

I agree there has been some waxing and waning in the power and influence of the states and, in particular, where a state comes out with a good policy idea and does things better than other states, often those other states will adopt it, or potentially the federal Government will seek to impose it. And yes, there are tensions in federalism, and it empowers a supreme court, but I would submit, whether the United States or Germany, that federal systems have been much more stable than the system of devolution that we have had, which has been a constant flow of powers one way towards greater devolution.

I don't know if you will speak later, but I don't discern an answer to the question as to what happens with England. The debates about federalism seem to be of greater interest and spoken about much more in Wales, Scotland, and perhaps to a degree in Northern Ireland, than they are in England, and either of those models of a regional Assembly or an English Parliament have very significant problems with them. I find it difficult to see a sustainable UK polity where you have an English Parliament and a separate English Government of such power, influence and size relative to the UK Government. And while I will listen to contributions, whether here or elsewhere, I'm yet to see an answer to that.

I was talking about the many Members who voted remain and see that our leaving the EU diminishes the UK. I, of course, see it differently. I believe leaving the EU enhances the UK, so perhaps I do not put the weight that some others may on the risk of Scotland becoming independent or Ireland reunifying. But if you expect Scotland and Northern Ireland to go their own way, devolution for Wales will indeed be a live issue, and not settled, as the Government amendment purports.  

Will you take an intervention? 

Yes. 

I'll try to make a few points. These are very much the early days of devolution. We're in the process of settling down, if you like. And if we look at the relationship between the countries in this union—this is one area perhaps on which we'll agree—I believe that, just as you think the UK will be stronger from having left the European Union, we could be stronger as nations in these islands by becoming independent nations, with an agreed method through which we work together. 

Rhun, I'm aware of your view; I just don't think it is very widely shared. Were England not to support the continuance of the current devolved system, I've little doubt that, in a forced vote, Wales would choose the status quo ante or near-unitary England and Wales Government, rather than independence. I believe, however, there were considerable drawbacks to that pre-1999 system, and Governments of Wales have diverged quite markedly from England, but with very little in the way of reference to the people of Wales democratically. In practice, the Wales Office ran a fairly self-contained fief under successive Secretaries of State, at times with very different policy emphases from the rest of the Westminster Government. However, the outlook of John Redwood was enormously different from that of Nicholas Edwards, Peter Walker, David Hunt. Few would suggest that his appointment reflected any democratic shift to the right in Welsh society.

My proposal is, therefore, we consider a system where Welsh Government remains devolved but with a First Minister directly elected and accountable to the people of Wales, and the legislative framework embedded at Westminster. This would put a stop to our present slippery slope, where devolution is a process that is only ever in one direction, with more and more powers being devolved and less and less done at UK level. [Interruption.] I'm sorry, Carwyn, I'm unable to give way because of the passage of time. 

MPs elected in Wales but embedded in Westminster would lack our institutional incentive to demand more and more power for themselves, applying a brake to the centrifugal forces affecting the UK. Rather than looking to drive through a large legislative programme every year to make Welsh laws more different from English laws, Welsh Ministers could make their case to an enhanced Welsh grand committee where they have the strongest case for further differing legislation. An elected First Minister could appoint the best and brightest from across Welsh society as Welsh Ministers, instead of taking legislators away from their proper job of scrutiny. That may not, of course, suit the interests of all Members and Ministers here, but it may be the right way forward for Wales.  

I have selected the six amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3 and 4 will be deselected. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendments 3 and 4 will be deselected. If amendment 3 is agreed, amendment 4 will be deselected. I call on Neil McEvoy to move amendment 1, tabled in his name. Neil McEvoy. 

Amendment 1—Neil McEvoy

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Regrets that Welsh devolution has been hindered to date by the failure to devolve further powers.

2. Calls for Welsh devolution to be strengthened by:

a) the devolution of air passenger duty; and

b) the full legislative devolution of the justice system and the maintenance of independent Welsh institutions of justice.

Amendment 1 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. Too many people talk Wales down. I'm here to talk our country up; to talk about our potential, to talk about living in a place where the Welsh dream can become a reality. Now, the Welsh National Party has a vision of our Welsh dream. We can live in a nation where there is good-quality housing for all, people owning their own homes, a Wales where people with good ideas can create businesses and jobs, where we can be an outward-looking country, connected to the world.

Cardiff used to be the second biggest port in the world. Our Welsh ports can thrive again, shipping top-quality Welsh produce around the world. But this reality for Wales will not happen whilst our ability to make our own decisions is so limited. I regret the failures of successive Labour Governments in Wales, but my biggest regret is that we, as a nation, are still denied the opportunity to govern ourselves. Government by the people: it's an old concept called democracy.

There are two particular areas where we should have taken control already, which is the focus of my amendment, both, where, in Scotland and the North of Ireland, they already have control but it's denied to us in Wales. Firstly, on air passenger duty. It's ridiculous that control over this still resides in London. The reason we don't have control over this tax is because Bristol Airport doesn't like it; they don't like the idea that a Welsh airport could be more competitive, so an entire nation is denied control over air passenger duty because one medium-sized city outside of Wales doesn't like it. It's an incredible situation.

Justice in Wales. I find it, again, incredible that we don't have justice devolved, especially when we pay 40 per cent of the bill. Attempting to be just and trying to ensure that justice is at the heart of what any Government should be doing, but this Welsh Government has no control over justice. We can make Welsh laws in this place, but we do not have a Welsh legal jurisdiction; we cannot align our social and health needs with justice. We arrive in strange situations where Welsh people have higher rates of imprisonment than any other country in Western Europe. We've also got super prisons where we actually have to import prisoners from outside of Wales to fill the spaces, but if you're a woman, it's impossible to go to jail in Wales because there are no women's prisons, and that means you'll be sent outside of your country where your family have to travel long distances to visit you.

So, these are my real regrets, and, yes, the Welsh Government could be doing much, much better, but the long- term interests of our nation will be served through Welsh sovereignty—sovereignty for the individual, the community, and national sovereignty. A Wales where people have power over their own lives, where communities can decide what happens in each community and where we decide as a nation how we live.

Now, there are people calling for this place to be abolished, but how we are governed is a matter for people who live in Wales. I say to Neil Hamilton here to my right, who is moving the amendment to abolish the Welsh Assembly: if there were a referendum, you wouldn't even be able to vote because you live in England.

I could buy a house.

You're very welcome to buy a house.

I could leave my wife. 

There is a Wales that we must create. There is a Wales that we can build. So, let's get it done. Diolch yn fawr.

I call on the Counsel General to move formally amendment 2. 

Amendment 2—Rebecca Evans

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Welcomes the collective contributions that have been made by political parties on all sides and by wider civic society to making devolution the settled will of the Welsh people.

Amendment 2 moved.

Formally.

I call on Dai Lloyd to move amendment 3, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian.

Amendment 3—Siân Gwenllian

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Regrets the dismal record of the Labour Welsh Government that has been in power continuously since the inception of devolution.

2. Believes that successive Westminster UK Governments—under both Labour and the Conservatives—have presided over intergenerational poverty and underinvestment in Wales.

3. Believes that decisions about Wales’s future should be made by those who live and work here.

4. Believes that having the economic and fiscal levers of an independent country is the key to Wales’s future prosperity.

5. Agrees that the power to call a future referendum on independence should lie with the elected representatives of the people of Wales free from any veto by Westminster. 

Amendment 3 moved.

Thank you, Llywydd. I move amendment 3 in the name of Siân Gwenllian, and just to quote, We regret

‘the dismal record of the Labour Welsh Government that has been in power continuously since the inception of devolution.’

We further believe

‘that successive Westminster UK Governments – under both Labour and the Conservatives – have presided over intergenerational poverty and underinvestment in Wales.’

We further believe

‘that decisions about Wales’s future should be made by those who live and work here.’

We also believe

‘that having the economic and fiscal levers of an independent country is the key to Wales’s future prosperity.’

And we also agree

‘that the power to call a future referendum on independence should lie with the elected representatives of the people of Wales free from any veto by Westminster.‘

Will you take an intervention on that point? Why has he airbrushed his time in Government from the history in his motion?

I don't recall I was in Government, thank you, Hefin.

Your party, sorry.

Now, to respond to the motion, fundamentally, it’s the Government here that is underperforming and failing, not the institution. By the way, we agree with Neil McEvoy’s amendment, but we’re unable to support it, because that would delete our own amendment.

However, having said all of that, there are some successes that we could quote from this Senedd over the years. We have seen the prohibition of smoking in public places—that started in this place 19 years ago, we would still be waiting if we waited for Westminster; free prescriptions; the medical school in Swansea—we fought for a generation for that, and it’s devolution that has delivered that, it’s this Parliament that has delivered that; charging for plastic bags, years before England did so; changing the organ donation system almost five years ago now; and the minimum alcohol price.

Certain things have been achieved in this place, but we should have achieved much more in 20 years. With a Government that is underperforming, the way forward, naturally, is to vote against that party when there is a Welsh general election, that’ll happen next year, of course—a vote for a change of Government. After all, when the Westminster Government makes a mess of things and underperforms, then people talk about a general election, instead of calling for the abolition of Westminster. It’s a change of Government that is the solution, not the abolition of the whole institution up there.

And there has been plenty of talk about respecting the result of the referendum in 2016. I note that Mark Reckless paid no attention at all to the referendum held here in 2011, because I have to say, we need to respect the result of every referendum, including the 2011 referendum.

Does he remember the wording on the ballot where it said, 'the Assembly cannot make laws on tax, whatever the result of this vote', and doesn't he think that should be respected?

I will take you back to 2011, as Mark Reckless, of course, wasn’t here at that particular time, and in the 2011 referendum, the people of Wales stated clearly—64 per cent of them, in fact, said ‘yes’. They stated clearly that this Senedd needed more powers to work properly, and we are still waiting for that aspiration to be truly delivered by more powers here so that we can work effectively as a Senedd. We need to respect the decision of the 2011 referendum, and we need to respect that decision, and, further to that, we need to support amendment 3 in the name of Siân Gwenllian. Thank you.

I call on Darren Millar to move amendment 4.

Amendment 4—Darren Millar

Delete 'Welsh devolution' and replace with 'successive Welsh Governments'. 

Amendment 4 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd. I'm a little bit surprised, actually, by the opening contribution to this debate because, of course, the motion on the order paper talks about the failure of Welsh devolution and yet, you went on to speak very much more widely about devolution across the United Kingdom and the various challenges that that might face if a federal system, effectively, were to be introduced.

Our amendment, of course, is designed to actually get the real steer of the fundamental problem that we've experienced in Wales since the advent of devolution, and that is that we've had a National Assembly that has been dominated by one political party, and that political party has been the Labour Party and it's been in Government in one way or another since 1999. It’s a misconception to associate the failures of that Government with devolution and therefore to draw the wrong conclusion, I believe, that, because of the failures of that Government, devolution doesn't work. We believe that devolution has a great deal of potential to transform this nation into the powerhouse that we believe that it can be. We also believe that the way to do that, of course, is to vote Welsh Conservative in the next Welsh Parliament elections in order that we've got a Conservative majority Government.

I think it is a little bit rich of Plaid Cymru to be critical in its motion of successive Labour-led Governments when it did form part of one of those Governments for a period of four years. And, you know, I know that they like to have or seem to have collective amnesia about those four years, and we'd like to forget them too, frankly—[Interruption.] Yes, I'll happily take an intervention.

I think you'll remember in Dai Lloyd's contribution that he was very clear that devolution had achieved some good things. Many of those things were delivered by Plaid Cymru Government Ministers, some of them have been delivered by Labour Ministers or by Liberal Democrat Ministers. We're not saying it's a total wash-out, but we are saying that it hasn't reached its potential and on this, I think, we'd agree.

I would absolutely agree with you that there have been some achievements in Wales over the period of devolution and Dai referred to some of them: the carrier bag levy that we proposed on these benches, for example; the protection of school playing fields, which was also something that we proposed; the implementation of new legislation on mental health—also something that came from these benches too—which I would like to celebrate; and, indeed, the collaborative work that we all did in terms of the introduction of a ban on smoking in public places. So, there have been some significant achievements, I think, over the past number of years, but of course we mustn't forget either that there have also been some significant failings of the Labour Government and that, of course, is the focus of our motion.

So, we think it’s a matter of deep regret that our education system is the worst in the United Kingdom. That’s because of choices that have been made by the Labour Party and the helpers of the Labour Party over the years in terms of their policy decisions, which have been implemented. We believe that it’s a matter of deep regret that our health service falls behind on so many measures as well with other health services in parts of the United Kingdom too. We also believe that it’s a matter of deep regret that our economy is still one of the poorest in Europe, in spite of the fact that we have been the recipients of significant sums of EU aid, all of which have been managed by the Welsh Labour-led Governments over the past 20 years.

That’s why we think that it’s important to draw the distinction between devolution and the performance of the Government here and that’s the purpose behind our motion. I very much hope that people will support it when it comes to voting later this afternoon.

I call on Neil Hamilton to move amendments 5 and 6, tabled in his name.

Amendment 5—Neil Hamilton

Add as new point at end of motion:

Believes that the National Assembly for Wales should be abolished.

Amendment 6—Neil Hamilton

Add as new point at end of motion:

Believes that practical alternatives to devolution, in the absence of a National Assembly for Wales, include democratising the NHS and giving greater powers to parent-governors to determine schools' education policy.

Amendments 5 and 6 moved.

Diolch, Llywydd, and I beg to move the amendments standing in my name. I agree with Darren Millar that this doesn't necessarily mean that devolution could have succeeded and that it's because we've had a Labour Government, propped up by Plaid Cymru, for the entire life of this Assembly in one shape or form—either in coalition with it or at the beginning of this Assembly, of course, they were instrumental in voting for the Labour Government to be put back into office under the former First Minister, so Plaid Cymru bear equal responsibility for the failures of the Labour Government.

Dai Lloyd said in his speech that we should respect the result of the 2011 referendum, which raises a horse laugh in those who didn't want to respect the result of the referendum in 2016 and wanted to reverse the decision of the British and Welsh people before it had even been implemented. It took us 41 years from 1975 to get a new EU referendum. It's been a generation since the first referendum to establish an Assembly in Wales and I think, after 25 years of failure, unrelieved failure by a permanent Labour Government, it is time to allow the Welsh people to have their say once more. I wouldn't, personally, be against having a referendum on independence as part and parcel of that. I see no reason why that should not be put to the Welsh people as well. So I hope that Plaid Cymru will support me in a demand for a referendum on the various options that the Welsh people can decide between. 

There's no doubt that there's been considerable disaffection growing in Wales, from both ends of the spectrum here, in recent years. The latest YouGov poll, in January, had in its results that 21 per cent of those who responded favour independence but 24 per cent want to abolish this place. That's 46 per cent one way or another who express an extreme form of dissatisfaction with the performance of the Assembly. Until Gareth Bennett started to raise this issue a little time ago, there was nobody in this Assembly who was giving voice to that very substantial minority that now wants to see this place abolished. I'm pleased to see the Brexit Party following in our slipstream, but I'm not sure that the proprietor of the Brexit Party actually knows about the policy change that has been adopted. Maybe we'll find out about that later. 

There are arguments for devolution, of course—in fact, I've made them myself in this Assembly, earlier on. I have seen what devolution could have done from other parts of the world and, if we had had a Government that was prepared to put forward policies that could start to solve some of the problems that have been pointed out in this debate so far, then I could support it—[Interruption.]

Thanks for giving way, Neil. You've made a very interesting contribution. I think it's a thought-provoking debate. Would you agree that, as Darren Millar said earlier, we have to distinguish between devolution and the Welsh Government? Too often, people don't do that. For instance, if you were First Minister yourself, maybe you'd look a little bit more sympathetically on devolution. 

Well, that's an interesting thought. 

But that is the problem, that in Wales we have lived under a permanent one-party state. And it's because I see this as an incurable flaw in the system that I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that not only has devolution failed, but it will always fail because the political culture is such that anybody who is right of centre is never going to have a Government that he or she will be happy with. And that, I think, is the flaw with the Conservative amendment as well. [Interruption.] I'm not sure I've got time. Well, I'll give way to the former First Minister.

I'm grateful for you giving way. Just two points: firstly, nations have parliaments. If Wales did not have any kind of democratic institution such as this but Scotland did, Northern Ireland did and there was one in Westminster, we would not be a nation, we would effectively be in a position where we were actually less important than Manchester or London, who have democratic institutions. Secondly, what he's arguing is people in Wales are really too stupid to vote for his kind of politics, so therefore this institution should be abolished as a result. Now he's arguing that the real problem is democracy, not the Assembly. 

No. All I'm saying is that the democratic institutions by which Wales is governed actually exclude the views of a very substantial proportion of the population permanently, and that is a big flaw in the system. When I was at Westminster, I saw the opposite side of this coin, which gave rise to the Scottish Parliament. It's because the Scottish people were permanently represented at Westminster by a party of which they didn't approve. We couldn't say that here in Wales, or at least to the same extent.

The catalogue of failures of the Welsh Government are legion. We are languishing at the bottom of the income tables in the United Kingdom by a very long margin indeed. We have about 75 per cent of the average UK income here in Wales. There are all sorts of problems of poverty in Wales that have not been addressed by the Welsh Labour Government—fuel poverty, for example, which has been made even worse by their policy of driving up energy prices. There are so many other things as well, which I've now not got time, unfortunately, to go into.

But the big problem is it's the UK Government that has got the money. The fiscal deficit that we have in Wales, which as has been pointed out, is a very substantial proportion of our GDP, can only actually be met with money that comes from the English taxpayer. Therefore, if Wales is to have even a small chance of changing the deplorable state of the Welsh economy and living standards of the Welsh people, then it can only be done through the greater firepower that a UK Government has.

The reason I actively got involved in politics was because of the endless loss of power and control to Brussels. I am someone who believes that power should be as close as possible to the people. I believe that government is, and always should be, a servant of the people and not a master.

Let's take a little reality check here. Some people in Wales will be facing a hard winter living on the streets. NHS staff are dealing with the chaos winter inevitably brings. The elderly and the poor will be choosing between heating and eating, and we have potentially transformational additional powers set to arrive at the Assembly as a result of leaving the EU. To my frustration and disappointment, this institution spends our time, in fact the people of Wales's time, debating what we call ourselves and what we call this institution. I have no doubt that these feelings are echoed across my region. Changing the name of this institution or changing our titles will not address any of those issues. Changing our title from 'Assembly Member' to 'Member of Parliament' or even 'Senator' will not help any constituent. Our time should have been spent improving our constituents' lives, not our curricula vitae.

The taxpayer in Wales already pays for too many politicians. Scotland has around double the population of Wales but they have fewer councillors. I sat in this Chamber when the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services spoke of the need to reform local government, but this Government now backs away because they cannot make any difficult decisions. At the last Assembly election I, like most of the Members in this Chamber, attended hustings with constituents and they raised concerns over things like Betsi Cadwaladr and the NHS in north Wales. The sad reality is that the health board will still be in special measures at the next election, despite the promises from parties around this Chamber. This is a failure of the Labour Government and this institution as a whole.

The A55 is a vital road connecting north Wales. The lack of investment in that road has a negative impact on the north Wales economy. Stationary vehicles in traffic also have an impact on our environment. This is also a failure of the Labour Government and this institution as a whole. The lack of investment in rail and bus services in north Wales, the crumbling road infrastructure, the lack of phone and internet connection are all failures of the Labour Government and this institution as a whole. It's not working, and I urge all Members to support our debate today unamended.

Can I make a very short intervention? Thank you. Were you here when we debated Betsi Cadwaladr a few weeks ago? Were you here when we debated the A55 earlier this afternoon? Were you here when we discussed broadband connection a couple of months ago? Because it sounds to me as if you're totally oblivious to what's happening in this place.

None of it is working.

Llywydd, I wasn't planning to speak, but having listened to the contributions I thought that I should. One of the issues that is never addressed by those people who want to see abolition is what it means for the rest of the UK, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and why it is that Wales, apparently alone, should not have its own voice. Why is it that Wales alone—compare us to Scotland, Northern Ireland, England, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, take your pick, Gibraltar—shouldn't have its own legal jurisdiction? Why is it that in two years' time it will be possible to be arrested for an offence in England that isn't an offence in England? Namely, if you hit a child, you cannot use the defence of reasonable chastisement. It will be possible to be arrested in Newcastle for an offence that isn't an offence in Newcastle. That is legal nonsense. It's nonsense. It doesn't make any sense at all. And the issue with jurisdiction is not as radical as people think. It's normal, actually. This is the abnormal situation where a Parliament does not have a jurisdiction.

I listened to Mark Reckless's arguments. He made them at an event we both attended in Newcastle. I have to remind him that we did not seek income tax varying powers. They were imposed on us, effectively, by a Conservative Government. That's what happened. So it's not as if we deceived the people of Wales in 2011. It was decided by a Conservative Government that we needed—and I don't necessarily disagree with the logic—to have revenue-raising powers in order to be able to borrow. But it wasn't something that we particularly sought, because Northern Ireland didn't have revenue-raising powers, but did have the ability to borrow.

Do I think Wales should be on a par with Scotland and Northern Ireland? Yes, I do. And I heard him on Saturday say with pride that his grandfather was a Fianna Fáil TD, so, a member of the anti-treaty forces in the Irish civil war. But is that not a lesson for us? That if Irish home rule had been granted—and the first world war intervened, we know that—then Ireland might not be independent today. It was the intransigence of the Westminster system that led to the slicing off of one part of the UK back in 1921, because the UK, remember, is not even 100 years old with its current boundaries. My argument would be—and I listen to what he says about where does this end, devolution is a process not an event, where does it end—for me, it ends with a structure that makes everything clear. There are others in the Chamber who want independence. I don't seek that; for me, it's four territories with their own powers and, call it what you want, a federal parliament at the top.

It doesn't mean more politicians. You don't need 600 MPs in a federal parliament. The UK Government delivers very, very few services across the whole of the UK, very few: border control, currency, fiscal policy, and that is pretty much it. Even vehicle licensing is devolved in Northern Ireland, and that's not done by—. [Interruption.] Sorry? Defence. I knew I'd missed one out. I'm not looking for the devolution of defence. And so, that's something we need to consider. You wouldn't need to have a large UK Parliament in order to scrutinise a UK Government in those circumstances.

And I have to say, this idea that it's an institution's fault—. Now, it's perfectly democratic, of course, for others in this Chamber to criticise the Welsh Government. I don't agree with what they've said, but this is what the Chamber is for, to have that kind of debate, and if this Chamber wasn't here, there wouldn't be that debate. In fact, none of us in this Chamber wouldn't have a voice. There'd be no debate at all. And that's something we have to remember because I could argue that in the 1980s Westminster was a malevolent force in Wales. It destroyed the coal industry. It destroyed the steel industry. I could argue, 'Well, the problem is Westminster, let's abolish Westminster.' Equally, you could argue that the problem is democracy: 'Let's get rid of democracy because the problem is in Wales, people vote for the wrong parties.' And it's not fair that the centre right—well, he calls himself the centre right, Neil Hamilton—in Wales don't have a voice. Win some elections.

I'm not going to stand here and apologise for the fact that my party has been successful for the past 20 years. I know it gets more difficult with every election—of course, it does. People say, 'Well, you've been in power a long time', and I know that that's something that you have to work hard to combat. But to say people in Wales are effectively too stupid to vote for the right kind of politics is a reason to abolish the institution that they themselves created in 1997, and they themselves in 2011 decided by a majority of nearly two to one—and it would have been higher if the opinion polls hadn't shown it was going to be a clear victory. They decided by two to one in 2011, a mere nine years ago, that we should have primary powers here in Wales. It was clear what people voted for and people did it as a matter of pride and there was a cross-party campaign, in fairness, that supported that.

And finally, I'll simply say this: you cannot pretend, as I said earlier, to be any kind of nation if you have no political structure, especially in a country like the UK where there'd be a Scottish Parliament, a Northern Ireland Assembly, Manchester, London, Westminster Parliament and Wales would have nothing. Even Cornwall has a county council. And the idea that somehow Welsh MPs are so devoid of work that they could actually scrutinise a Welsh mayor—the only way I can describe it—I just find that fanciful. I'm sure that they are overwhelmed with work as it is. And of course, it fails to address the question: does that mean then that the 40 Welsh MPs could instigate their own legislation? Because if that's not the case, then that directly goes against the referendum result in 2011 when the people of Wales decided by a hefty majority that this was the place where primary legislation would be drafted and passed in devolved areas.

I've gone on for longer than I wanted to, Llywydd, but surely the time has come across the whole of the UK for a stable constitutional settlement that's in everyone's interest. 

I've listened to the contributions. I think they've been thoughtful and entertaining and fanciful. I'm not going to pin the actual description on each speaker. But I do think in any new system of Government, you need to look at the institutions, and the Government is an important institution but the legislature is at least as important. In fact, from the legislature the Executive draws its authority. In a review of what we've done in the last 20 years, I just want to mention what I consider to be some of the things we've led on in the UK. Nearly all—in fact, all of these had cross-party support, as far as I recall. 

The children's commissioner. That was our response to the report, 'Lost in Care'. We're still seeing the ripples 20 years later about a very different view about what children's rights are and those in the care of the state. It's been copied by all the other jurisdictions in the UK.

The foundation phase—does anyone ever remember that—that followed the Cambridge review, a UK, or an England and Wales Government review—a UK Government review for England and Wales? The Cambridge review was soundly rejected by, I think, it was just the Blair's Government's final days; it may have been Mr Brown. In fairness, the Labour Party here took it forward. Now, as far as I know, early years learning, based on play, is accepted throughout the UK, and I accepted it back then. I was probably the only Conservative, but I may have had other allies then. 

The mental health Measure was mentioned by Darren and proposed by Jonathan Morgan. The active travel Act—one of the greatest pieces to—. Although it was taken over by the Government, it did emerge from the civic sector, led by my great friend Lee Waters and Sustrans at the time. The human tissue Act, or presumed consent, which, incidentally, I disagreed with, but anyone watching the way the health Minister, who is now our First Minister, took that legislation through its stages, with all the tact and sensitivity that generous hearts could have very different views on it, you could show that in any seminar around the world about how a legislature should operate. And then, another one—the well-being of future generations Act. I think the great mark of that success is it's doing more to hold the Government that passed it to account than I think they probably realised at the time. But perhaps you'll allow me that slightly barbed remark. 

The question is: has Welsh political autonomy become the settled will? Well, however you cut it and dice it, and you've got to work quite hard, you can get about 20 per cent of the population to say they want the Assembly abolished. Now, trying to add to that figure the 25 per cent that now believe in independence I do think is a slight of hand, because I think you have to say that at least 80 per cent of the people want political autonomy, and some want it so full that it would amount to independence. The polling consistently indicates this. Now, there is some truth that we've had to work at this. I have said in some speeches I've made in the past, particularly to students from abroad, that we've had a long political convention, because we started with a very strange model. In fairness, it may have been the only model in 1997 that could have passed a referendum. I have no criticism for the Labour Government's pragmatic view then. But we had a sort of 101 version of political autonomy, and we had to work at it. And the result was the remarkable success of the referendum in 2011. And I played a very small part in explaining to David Cameron what it would mean if this place, under the 2006 Act, voted for a referendum by two thirds, and then Parliament denied that on a simple vote. And he said 'Oh, hold on now, what are we talking about—that we would vote in Parliament to say the Assembly was wrong after a two thirds vote to ask the people of Wales whether they wanted full legislative powers?' And, in fairness to him, he saw the complete nonsense of that. And as he says in his autobiography, he then had a job of work to do to convince some in the political community of that reality. And I'm glad he did it. 

My own view is that greater federal mechanisms will be necessary. I think, in England, it's frankly up to the English what political institutions they want. There is a danger that if there's an English Government, as England as a whole, it could overpower a British Government. I do think that's a genuine danger, which is why I prefer the sort of super-municipalism that we now seem to be seeing. And let's not forget—there is a devolved institution in England in the London Assembly.

So, I think we can look on this record as one of great work, generously done by nearly all parties, anyway, to make political governance in Wales a much more coherent entity. And now all we've got left that's a real absurdity is the legal jurisdiction we don't have, so that laws made in this Parliament extend to England and Wales, but are only applied in Wales. If you can talk any sense around that principle, I'd be glad to hear you. But, Presiding Officer, I think we should remember that there have been great successes. The challenges, the mistakes, they're all there too, but really, devolution has worked. 

Llywydd, I had thought twice about participating in the debate, because, in the light of everything that's happening, it all seemed a little bit untimely, but also one where it comes from a party that has no democratic mandate in this Chamber. It's a motion proposed by a party that has never been elected to this Assembly; there's never been an Assembly election in which the Brexit Party has appeared on any ballot paper; they've never had the endorsement of any manifesto or policy proposal in the Welsh Assembly; and their presence in this Chamber is, effectively, an unforeseen consequence of an electoral system that was intended to broaden democratic representation, but has, in my view, been abused to subvert its real democratic objective.

And you have to ask what is the real purpose of this motion. Well, I think it is an opportunist attempt to exploit a minority of anti-politics populism, in the hope it will provide them with some electoral basis during the next Assembly elections when they wish to return to this Chamber. It is, in my view, a motion that is a cynical and a blatant attempt at vested political interest and survival. And one of the amendments is from a Member who cannot even be bothered to live in Wales. In other countries, this merry-go-round of party switching, renaming, recreation, to suit the whims and self-interests of the individuals concerned, is, and I regard as—well, certainly in other countries, it would be regarded as undemocratic. And the creation of this Assembly—this Parliament now—is the result of mandates from a variety of general elections and from referenda, and there is a clear democratic mandate for it.

Devolution to me is about empowerment, it is about the decentralisation of power and bringing it as close to the people as possible. It is true that there has been a major loss of confidence in our democratic political system, and that the deep divisions in our society over Brexit have contributed to this, undoubtedly, and we have to address this. But we must continue to look at ways of increasingly empowering communities, and strengthening community and local government, and that these take place within a framework of common values. And we shouldn't ignore what we have so far been able to achieve through the decentralisation of power to the people of Wales, which devolution has enabled us to achieve.

Those of us who were brought up during the pre-devolution era, in particular the Thatcher era, are well aware of the failures of the top-down, centralised, autocratic political system that we were subjected to. And since then, with devolution, we have resisted, for example, the privatisation of the NHS taking place in England. We have resisted the privatisation and fragmentation of education that is taking place there. We've resisted the attempts to introduce systems of selective education that is happening in England. And we've protected agricultural workers in Wales, public sector workers' rights within Wales. We've led the way in social partnership, in organ transplantation, in tenants' rights, and economically we have the highest levels of employment that we have had for decades—levels of employment that we could have only dreamt of decades ago. In Wales we have the largest school-building programme of anywhere in the United Kingdom, and we provide free medicine in Wales, unlike in England. And we are now extending our democratic entitlement to vote to 16-year-olds.

So, we have achieved this, and we've achieved much more, in a decade of Tory austerity, which has deprived us of billions of pounds of public funding. And of course there is a long way to go, and much to do, of course, and there are failures, and there are things that go wrong. But in that respect I'll say this, and I say to those who weren't brought up during the pre-devolution period: when we talk about the mistakes and the errors that we made, and the things that go wrong, well, that's because we know about them, we can debate them, we can hold Government to account. In the pre-devolution period, we never could—we never knew about them, and they were hidden in the annals. That was the type of democracy that we had at that stage, and that's why the decentralisation of power was so important, and why devolution was so important. We can now hold our politicians and political institutions to account in a way that we never could before.

This motion, Llywydd, is a negative, it's a destructive motion, of the type that we have learnt to expect from the far right. It contributes nothing to the challenges facing Wales, and it should be rejected outright.

I'm very grateful you've allowed me to gatecrash the end of this debate. I wasn't going to speak, but, actually, I found the content of it has completely exercised me.

I absolutely refute all notion that there should be any rolling back of devolution, whatsoever. What we need to do—and I'm not going to stand here either and say what we need to do is split the difference between the Assembly and the Parliament, and, you know, the terrible Welsh Government. Because, actually, we all need to look at ourselves, because we haven't been brave, and we're in this situation today because we haven't been brave. We haven't gone for more Assembly Members, and we need them. Why do we need them? We need them, actually, because you guys have been in power for a long time, and if you had a free backbench, if you had more Assembly Members, you could have that critical analysis and that critical scrutiny that is so important from—[Interruption.] No, you do it now, but there's a freedom that comes with numbers. There's more freedom with numbers in the opposition as well. We need to have a better committee system. We need to consider how we're going to revise legislation going forward. What we need to do is have a robust and effective Parliament here. We need to build in improvements, not seek to reduce and row back. Because I'm absolutely with Carwyn on this, and I speak as somebody who was born in England, lived most of my life in the far east, and came here 20 years ago. My kids are Welsh, I claim Welshness, I love this Parliament, I'm really, really proud of it, and I absolutely do not understand why Welsh people should not have exactly the same rights as my darling husband who's a Scot, or my friends who are in the Irish Parliament. So, absolutely—we have to be equal. How we work out that tension and that balance with England—again, a country I love, respect and admire, but a political force that is much bigger than us—I do not know. And those are the things that we need to work out.

But look to ourselves first, guys, because how many times do people not turn up to committees? How many times do people not read the papers? How many times do people not bother to do accurate scrutiny? How many times do people not bother to read legislation and make all those improvements? We want to be a good Parliament here. We have to up our game, and then we start arguing about the rest of it. But do not—do not—let out failings be a reason why people should say 'no' to the Welsh Parliament.

I call on the Counsel General, Jeremy Miles.

Diolch, Llywydd. This a motion in search of a headline from a party in search of a purpose. It's a pretty crude attempt by the Brexit Party—and the clue is in the name—to find a new target to attack now that they won't be able to blame the European Union for all the ills. Who's next on the list of targets? The very institution in which they choose to sit. But, Llywydd, it seems to me there's a basic contradiction at the heart of the attempt by the Brexit Party to switch its focus from a cause that has been won to one which I profoundly hope and expect is a lost cause.

Their campaign against the EU was built on the anxieties of people in communities across the UK that key decisions were being taken too far way from their communities. Their new target is this Senedd. And whatever else may be said about us, we are, in the main, rooted in our communities and very happy to be held to account by our voters.

So, what does 'take back control' actually mean? When the electorate sent a message that they felt powerless to influence the critical decision in their lives, are we really to believe that what they really wanted was a centralisation of all of that power in a square mile around Westminster, an elected dictatorship by a UK Government with a large majority, capable of riding roughshod over any other source of legitimacy in the UK, whether that be the devolved institutions, local government or the judiciary? I don't think so.

Llywydd, this Parliament is still relatively young—we will shortly reach our twenty-first birthday—and devolution in Wales has been anything but static. We've come from being a corporate body to being a Parliament, from a maker of secondary legislation to being a primary legislature, with growing tax powers and a grown appetite for further devolution. We now have the capacity to make choices that are better and different and better suited to the people of Wales. And it think it's a real achievement that, while the model of devolution has changed, the principle of devolution has now truly become the settled will of the people of Wales, and the credit for that achievement is one that is shared by all the mainstream parties represented in this Chamber. So, let's reject the motion for what it is—an attempt to subvert the will of the people of Wales by a party on its last legs.

Turning to the amendments. The Plaid Cymru amendment, as Hefin David said, attacks successive Welsh Governments, despite the fact that they were part of, what I would say, at least, was a successful coalition Government from 2007 to 2011. Amendment 1 is one the substance of which we don't at all disagree with, but we want to be able to vote on the amendment that we've laid, which captures the cross-party and the civic nature of the devolution settlement here in Wales. I heard fantastic contributions from the Conservative benches in relation to devolution. The amendment, I felt, didn't capture that. I was thinking perhaps you were waiting for a line from Westminster; I think that may be unfair, given the contributions that were made in the debate. And Neil Hamilton, I thought, for a man rescued from political oblivion by devolution, made a particularly ungrateful contribution in moving his amendment, perhaps sensing his political demise in this place, setting his sights on an elected health board job somewhere in the future, perhaps.

But, in seriousness, Llywydd, in a complex and globally networked interdependent world, where some problems can only be dealt with—like climate change—across jurisdictions, some others—like social care or education—must be tailored, in terms of their solutions, to local need. What we need in that kind of world is a distributed model of power and decision making and democracy, one which recognises and celebrates the role of devolved institutions like this Senedd, capable of creating parliamentarians who've given speeches today like Carwyn Jones, David Melding, Angela Burns and others, and we should be proud of the contribution this institution makes to Wales and to Welsh democracy, and not decry it. So, Llywydd, I ask Members to reject the motion and support the Government amendment.

Mark Reckless to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Llywydd. May I thank all Members for their contributions? I regret slightly the tone of the later two contributions from the Labour benches, because I thought many of the contributions before were very thoughtful and we were having a good debate. And may I remind, in particular, the Minister, when he speaks about subverting democracy, that Wales voted to leave the European Union. Now Mick Antoniw may like to say that view, or our standing, and what we say, that that must have been respected, was somehow going against democracy or being to an extreme—[Interruption.] I haven't got time for an intervention. I am sorry.

But, actually, you said that you would respect that referendum, but you then spent three and a half years seeking to subvert it. Thankfully, you lost, but there are consequences of that three and a half years for how many people in Wales feel about this institution and your Government. Now Dai Lloyd speaks about the—and others spoke about the—difference between Welsh Government and this institution, but, of course, to start with, for several years, they were the same entity, and that language still continues. But we see, when we talk about what Plaid say, that there has been no alternation in power in this place. And the Conservatives say how great devolution could be if only there was a Conservative Government, but how will that ever happen when Plaid say that they will never work with you? If you will not work to present an alternative Government, there is no alteration of power, and the natural upset with politics and disappointment comes at the institution, added to that three and a half years of seeking to block Brexit.

And we keep on hearing about the 2011 referendum, but what it said was: full law-making power in 20 devolved areas. And the system that predated it was pretty preposterous and didn't make any sense to anyone. Yes, Wales voted for that, but you then changed it to a reserved-powers model, with all powers devolved except in areas reserved to Westminster, and, specifically, you had on the ballot paper a statement that said the Assembly cannot make laws on tax whatever the result of this vote. In 2014, I was an MP who voted again in Westminster to legislate for that. But, in 2017, having stood in 2015 and 2016 on a manifesto of respecting that, you reversed it, didn't have the referendum, and forced tax-raising powers on Wales. I think there's a price to pay for that.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.